SME confidence falls

MYOB released:

New Zealand’s small businesses are sounding the alarm as confidence drops sharply in both the economy and their own enterprises, driven by falling revenue and a range of growing pressures.

More than half (53 percent) of the SME business operators surveyed in the latest MYOB Business Monitor Snapshot believe New Zealand’s economy will decline over the next 12 months, with nearly a fifth expecting the economy to contract sharply. Just 27 percent are expecting an improvement in the local economy in 2019.

The response is a significant reversal in confidence from just prior to the 2017 election, when 42 percent of business owners were confident the economy would improve, while 23 per cent predicted a decline.

From +19% to -26%!

Over a quarter (26 percent) of business operators state that their revenue had fallen over the last 12 months, while just 23 per cent saw revenue rise. Forty-seven per cent said their revenue had remained static over the last year. This is the first time since mid-2011 that more businesses have reported revenue falls than gains, and again marks an abrupt turnaround from the previous survey in September 2017, when 37 percent saw their annual revenue increase and just 18 percent reported a fall.

So this is about actual revenue not just sentiment.